(JWR) ---- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com)
NOW THAT THE BOMBS HAVE STARTED FALLING, many people in high places will
decide that it is time to close ranks behind our government and our troops
in the war zone. That is a very decent instinct. Yet it might well be a
higher form of loyalty to step back and ask where all this is leading --
before it is too late.

Already our military actions are being justified by the argument that we
are in there now and cannot pull out without a devastating loss of
credibility and influence in NATO and around the world. In other words, we
can't get out because we have gotten in. That kind of argument will be heard
more and more if we get in deeper.

Is the Vietnam war so long ago that no one remembers?

We eventually pulled out of Vietnam under humiliating conditions, with a
tarnished reputation around the world and with internal divisiveness and
bitterness that took years to heal. Bad as this was, we could have pulled
out earlier with no worse consequences, and with thousands more Americans
coming back alive.

Why are we in the Balkans in the first place? There seems to be no
clear-cut answer, though there are many talking points and much political
spin.

To the question of what American national interest is involved in the
Balkans, the answer is that we are "interested" in seeing things turn out
better there. This is just playing with words. We can be "interested" in
anything from astronomy to zebras, but that has nothing to do with whether
we have a "national interest" in the plain and obvious sense that Americans
will be better off or worse off if one side wins in the Balkans rather than
the other.

If we are such dummies that we are ready to let this administration shed
American blood in something that is none of our business because of a play
on words, then we are truly in big trouble -- and headed for bigger trouble.
If that kind of "interest" is enough for us to intervene militarily in the
Balkans, then we have indeed become the world's policeman.

The humanitarian argument may be the strongest argument for intervention,
but it is by no means clear what humanitarian goal has been served by our
bombs.

Before the bombs, the Serbs were killing Kosovars and driving them from
their homes. After the bombs, the Serbs were still killing at least as many
Kosovars and driving them from their homes -- but now we were also killing
Serbs. That may be more symmetrical, but not more humanitarian.

Far too many people are ignoring or down-playing the prospect of an
American-Russian confrontation in the Balkans. Already Russia has been
arming the Serbs, so that they have more and better weapons to use against
American and other NATO warplanes than the Iraqis have. More important,
Russian leaders are already making noises about escalating their support of
the Serbs.

Maybe it is just a bluff. But what if it isn't? It is not Bill Clinton's
style to think beyond the moment and beyond his own immediate political
situation. But that makes it all the more important for the rest of us to do
so before it is too late.

Many people in high places seem confident that Russia will not escalate its
military challenge to American-led NATO forces in the Balkans. They point
out how impractical it would be for Russia, with all its economic and
internal political problems, to become embroiled militarily against the only
country with the financial resources to help them.

All of history would be different if countries did only practical things.
Admiral Yamamoto thought it was impractical for Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor.
German generals were plotting to overthrow Hitler in 1938, in order to
prevent him from getting Germany into a ruinous war. But these
impractical -- and ultimately catastrophic -- things happened anyway.

Wars are even less likely than other human endeavors to go according to
plan. Worse yet, this administration shows no sign of even having any real
plan. Its foreign policy, like so many of its other policies and actions, is
little more than a series of photo-ops and slick rhetoric geared to the
moment.

What matters to the Clinton administration is how things will look tonight
on the 6 o'clock news. The long run is left to take care of itself. If the
political situation creates a need to "do something," then this
administration will do something.

How that something will ultimately turn
out is not an issue on their political radar
screen.